


How The Body Falls Apart

by MisaTange



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Fuck Canon, Kidnapping, M/M, jervis has a sexuality crisis
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-08
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2020-11-27 08:31:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,494
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20945384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MisaTange/pseuds/MisaTange
Summary: How the body falls apartFirst the groin, and then the heartIt's easy, and it's smartThings on which we most dependSeem to fail us in the endHow like, like the body, when the body falls apart---------The Mad Hatter reconsiders his Alice obsession.





	1. he needs love, he needs love, he needs love

The Mad Hatter sighed, looking somberly into the eyes of a lifeless Alice, her blue eyes empty. She was perfect, except for the fact she had freckles, and that she had a dimple right on her shoulder, and that she was constantly afraid and screamed in fear. What kind of an Alice refused to go to Wonderland?

The doctors at Arkham had tried to help him regarding this compulsion to no avail. He has been in Arkham because of a misguided unrequited love: Alice, the original Alice, that is, was the only significant person outside of his family who listened to him.

That mere fact surely meant that he deserved Alice for him and him only, right?

Right?

\-----

Being part of the Gotham Rogue Gallery sucked. Despite intelligence being an apparent requirement to becoming part of the Batman’s Rogue Gallery, any hopes of becoming a “normal person” is out of the window. Even if you’re a regular felon, one whose criminal record isn’t filled with murder, mind control, and carjacking, the felony is attached to you forever. This is an issue if you want to get a job, in which even some grocery stores and fastfood chain restaurants have a problem with, if you want to get a college education, hell, even just as simple as finding a place to live. This reputation is multiplied significantly when you’re headlining for such things like mind control events. Even if you’ve declared sane, and your last headlining crime was decades ago, and you’re coping well, this reputation follows you throughout your life.

But it did have its perks, being unrestricted by societal pressures, if only because of this reputation. The most obvious example is their dress. Unless it is necessary (as in, involving hiding from the Bat), this refusal to conform to society is shown in their dedication to their aesthetic. This is shown in the Riddler, where he cannot detach himself from the green color as well as question marks, and Mad Hatter, wherein he looks similarly to his namesake, combined with a very colorful, Wonderlandian palette. 

This lack of pressure is shown in relationships. No, not Jervis’s reason why he’s in a mental asylum, but in regards to Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn. To have someone to be completely comfortable with was secretly was Jervis’s dream, not to gain an Alice, though this was linked.

Is this dream even possible?

\-----

Being in Arkham sucked. There was this implied forcing of “curing” Jervis. Even the best psychotherapists cannot help people who do not want to be helped, even with forced medication, that, even with the most resistant of people, managed to take medication, thanks to guards. The drab walls made him prefer him not to take medication. The medical whites and grays of his cell made him feel like wanting to be in Wonderland, but when he tried to feel for his hallucinations, he can only feel fatigue.

In a couple months, he was allowed in the rec room as a gift for good behavior, heart swelling with something or another as he saw Jonathan Crane. Arkham’s library did not have Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking-Glass, much to Jervis’s chagrin, so he sought for something else to do.

“How d’ya do?” Jervis said, giving his friend his signature Cheshire Cat grin. “How about it, Jonathan, do you want to play some chess?”

Jonathan’s only answer was him sitting across Jervis, his head indicating for him to sit down. Jervis’s grin grew larger as he did so.

As the two play, the silence eventually becomes booming and overwhelming for Jervis, despite being, at the same time, comfortable. He piped up with a question that has been stewing in his mind.

“Say, Jonathan,” he said. “I was wondering how my mind control cards interact with your fear toxin. Your toxins amplify the fear response whereas my cards decrease the brain’s reaction. Such a contrasting chemical response would be interesting to study, innit?”

As he talked, Jervis could have sworn he saw a flicker of a smile from Jonathan, but he could’ve chalked that up to something that he wanted to see than he actually saw.

“We could use other people,” Jonathan said, four words more than he usually said to fellow Arkham inmates even if they saw each other frequently enough thanks to Arkham’s shoddy security. “I hypothesize that yours will override mine.”

Jervis had been looking straight in the eyes of Jonathan for a few seconds too long – The Mad Hatter forgetting his manners, what a disaster – mentally stumbling himself before saying, “O-oh, yes, that would make sense!” He saw yet another glint of a smile that was gone another second afterwards. Very real fears such as loneliness manifested in awkward conversation – was he curious, or did he know something that Jervis did not?

The game continued and the conversation also continued, surprisingly, without a hitch. It was obviously because of a need for friendship, right? They continued to talk in whispers about formulas and hypotheticals.

The Mad Hatter saw an opportunity, moved the queen, and said proudly, “Checkmate, Marchy! Maybe another time!” 

The good doctor smiled at this.

And Jervis had never felt so comfortable.


	2. would you like a girl like that?

Jervis paced around his tea table. He was inside an abandoned one-story house, the owner running away from Gotham’s harsh living for one reason or another: Visiting a friend? Having to fetch errands? Running from the law? Regardless, it was not his business and it only mattered that it was no longer habited. On a corner laid an office table where he worked on his tech, the sprawling wires gathering ontop his desk like a snake, their connections only Jervis could understand. The kitchen was filled with rotten food but it didn’t matter in the first place because he had forgotten to eat: too busy working, too busy thinking, too busy seeing things that were obviously not there. 

The escape from Arkham went without a hitch (at least, as much as an escape attempt could be) and involved the help of Jonathan Crane and Edward Nygma, in which they parted ways soon afterwards and haven’t seen the other two for months at least, which he didn’t mind much: The rogues were usually self-sufficient if only because hiding from either the Batman or the police department was a necessity.

The endless days and nights when he was at Arkham he spent thinking what to do to forward his goal to get a new Alice. He edged toward finding a way to minimize his mind control effects on certain people, particularly on Alices. He liked her adventurous, curious qualities, but there was a problem when Jervis found out she wasn’t an Alice. Complete control over her ended up with an Alice that was uninteresting… boring. He wanted her to go to Wonderland voluntarily. But he could have a different approach: close observance of certain people and collecting his White Rabbits and being very specific about his instructions to get those certain people was another way. 

He paused, his thought process interrupted, hearing odd noises. Having not one, but several, foes who preferred to have a stealthy approach caused not just Jervis, but several of the Gotham Rogues, to have a keener sense of hearing and sight so that they won’t be back in Arkham. He reached underneath his overcoat to get his gun and sneaked to the front door.

Jervis immediately relaxed as he recognized the face of his dear friend.

“Jonathan!” he said, putting his gun back in the pockets of his overcoat, his arms telling Jonathan that he was about to hug him.

“Jervis, please don’t,” Jonathan said, tart.

He only giggled in response, but put his arms down, respecting Jonathan’s wishes. Jervis gave Jonathan a once-over, checking for injuries, which there was none.

“Say, you usually come to friends when you’re injured,” Jervis said. “Why have you come here?” The former comment was a sad reality and only partially related to the fact that Jonathan preferred to be alone, having to get out of the radar of the GCPD. Besides, he had presumed that Jonathan was working on the latest batch of fear toxin.

“You were curious to see how your technology and toxin interacted, so I have a proposition for you,” Jonathan said, Jervis beaming as he spoke before he realized that he should act more like his age. “I’ve recently finished my last batch of toxin. We could use your mind control and my toxin together to see its effects. May-”

“Of course!” Jervis said happily, not realizing that his friend was about to suggest something more than just experimentation. His facial expressions eased immediately. “What’s the catch, if you don’t mind? And what does it entail?”

“You’ll be paid handsomely of course,” Jonathan assured him. “And you’ll learn more about your own chemicals. I’m in need of money: perhaps a heist?”

“Sure,” Jervis said, glowing. 

He doesn’t know it yet, but he felt butterflies.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy (lateish!) New Year, y'all!

**Author's Note:**

> Baby's first Batman fic, and actually the first fic in a while that I've created! This fic has been inspired by In Trousers, which is, in my interpretation, all about the main character's coming to terms with his sexuality after being in so many years with a woman.


End file.
